SUN & MOON

CLASSICS

rsBN 'f -55713-173-2

ilillillllilil[[llillilil|lfll

DjunaBarnes
The Book of
THE BOOK OF REPULSIVE WOMEN

REPTJLSIVE

WOMEN
B T?lnytlnyns and 5 Drawings

SUN

Los Angeles i MOON PRESS

1994

Sun l Moon Press A Program of The Contemporary Arts Educational Proiect' Inc' a nonprofit corPoration 6026 Wilshire Boulevlrd, Los Angeles, California 90056 This edition first published in paperback in 1994 by Sun

fi

Moon

Press

10987654521 I

SECOND PAPERBACK EDITION TheBookof RepulsiveWomen was first published -Chip nook Uol' II) in November 1915 as a Bruno Moon Press in luly 1989 First published in paperbac\ pY Syl ai No. t of the 2o Pages series'

Introduction @1994 by Douglas Messerli Biographical material @lgg4 by Sun {l Moon Press All rights reserved
grant from This book was made possible, in part, through an operation-al to The the Andrew W. Melion Foundation, and thiough contributions Contemporary Arts Educational Proiect' Inc'' a nonprofit corPoration
Cover: Diuna Barnes Drawings: Djuna Barnes Cover Design: Katie Messborn TypograPhY: GuY Bennett

Contents

7 . 13 .
17 .

A Note by Douglas Messerli

From Fifth Avenue Up

In General
From Third Avenue On
Seen from the "L'

LIBRARYoFCONGRESSCATALOGINGINPUBLICATIONDATA Barnes, Diuna 11892-79821 Ihe Book of RePulsive Women (Sun r Moon Classics:59) P.cm ISBN: l-55715-192-9 I. Title. II. Series. 8l l'.54-dc20

19. 25. 25. 27.

3t

printed in the United states of America on acid-free paper. part of this Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved here' no into a retrieval r"uYy U. reiroduced, stoied i-n or introduced p"-Uif.",f." system, or transmiited, in any form or b1 an1 1ea11tele;11t":^" the pnor meJhanical, photocopying, recording-or otherwise)' without publisher written permisiion of tj6tnin. cgpyri[ht.owner and the above
of the book.

In Particular
Twilight of the Illicit
To a Cabaret Dancer

35.

Suicide

A Note

First published in the Bruno Chap Books series in Repulsive Women remains today Djuna Barnes's least known and, in terms of its content, most accessible of her writings. Certainly, it was not a book that Barnes herself highly valued, and one suspects that she would have characterized it, as she had all of her early journalism, as juvenilia. Whatever her view, she successfully suppressed a l94B pirated edition, published as Outcast Chapbook l{o. 14. Bern Boyle Books published a small edition in 1989, and Sun & Moon published an edition, based on the original, in Iuly of the same year,
Novemb er, 1915, The Book of

The Bern Boyle version, howeveq, brought up several interesting editorial questions, one of which, in

particular, had troubled me since first encountering the Bruno Chap Book while compiling my 7976 bibliography of Djuna Barnes. Barnes's writing is almost all inextricably connected with her art. The vast majority of the interviews, essays on theatre and other journalistic pieces, the novel Rydu, the collection of stories, A Book, and her Ladies Almanackwere all published side by side with her art. Even Nightwood is heavily reliant on the l8th and lgth century tableaux vivants, which she describes as "living picturesi'One might go far as to say that Barnes's literary method is, in fact, an "emblematic" one, in that her writing generally relies on visual elements that supplement, intensify, and clarify aspects of the language. What critics such as Ioseph Frank have described as "momentary stops" in the narrative action are actually related to this emblematic method of writing, wherein Barnes visualizes (with art or words) the moral or psychological condition of her characters before representing them in action. How peculiar, then, that her first book segregated drawings that were so clearly intended to relate directly to her poetry. As Bern Boyle so astutely recognized, certain of the drawings appear to fit on the page perfectly with the text. Having published our own edition exactly as it appeared in the original

Bruno Chap Book edition, I determined that when we reprinted we would reset these poems, pulling the art from the back of the book to the front, attempting to place the art in correspondence with the writing. My arrangement is not that of the Bern Boyle edition. Without knowing Bames's original intentions, I felt editorially more comfortable placing the art on facing pages of the poems rather than on the same pages. Moreove4, the art seemed to relate, in my mind, with poems different from those Bern Boyle had chosen. Others, doubtlessly, will disagree with my choices and, perhaps, with Bern Boyle's as well. Nonetheless, the artlpoem relationship feels, in both editions, much closer to a book by Djuna Barnes than the original
had.

Djuna Barnes, if she were not in fury might well

have laughed at the whole issue. O4, more likely, she would have demanded that we immediately destroy all copies. Ultimately, it is for her readers to decide

the importance of this literary and artistic contribution. It is our goal, in our on-going publication of the writings of Barnes, simply to bring the material to the reader/s attention. -Douglas Messerli
Los Angeles

BRUNO CHAP BOOKS

DJUNA BARNES
THE BOOK OF REPULSIVE WOMEN
8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings

TO MOTHER
Who was more or less like

All

mothers, but she was mine, and so-She excelled.

EDITED BY GUIDO BRUNO IN HIS GARRET ON WASHINGTON SQUARE, NEW YORK

IyJ,:.Tber,

1915 Filteen Cents

13

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.a .!

, :,
\..

".
-..,

jrr^}trt
(O*EDAY

AuenwtlJLp

beneath some hard Capricious starSpreading its light a little Over far, We'll know you for the woman That you are.

For though one took you, hurled you

JiJ'

Out of space, With your legs half strangled In your lace, You'd lip the world to madness On your face.

l4
We'd see your body in the grass With cool pale eyes. We'd strain to touch those lang'rous Length of thighs; And hear your short sharp modern Babylonic cries.
Once we'd not have called this

15

Woman youWhen leaning above your mother's Spleen you drew Your mouth across her breast as Trick musicians do. Plunging grandly out to fall Upon your face. Naked-female-baby In grimace. With your belly bulging stately Into space.

It wouldn't go. We'd feel you Coil in fear Leaning across the fertile Fields to leer As you urged some bitter secret Through the ear.
We see your arms grow humid In the heat; We see your damp chemise lie

Pulsing in the beat Of the over-hearts left oozing

At your feet.

you sagging down with bulging Hair to sip, The dappled damp flom some vague Under lip.
See

Your soft saliva, loosed With orgy, drip.

17

In $eneral
\ A fUef altar cloth, what rag of worth V V Unpriced?
What turn of card, what trick of game Undiced? And you we valued still a little More than Christ.

t9

jro^Tlnurd

Aunnue

On

A w O now she walks on out turned feet Beside the litter in the street n Or rolls beneath a dirtY sheet

Within the town. She does not stir to doff her dress, She does not kneel low to confess, A little conscience, no distress And settles down. Ah God! she settles down we say; It means her powers sliP away It means she draws back daY bY daY From good or bad'

20

2t And so she looks upon the floor Or listens at an open door Or lies her down, upturned to snore Both loud and sad.
Or sits beside the chinaware, Sits mouthing meekly in a chai4 With over-curled, hard waving hair Above her eyes. Or grins too vacant into spaceA vacant space is in her faceWhere nothing came to take the place Of high hard cries.
Or yet we hear her on the stairs With some few elements of prayers, Until she breaks it off and swears A loved bad word. Somewhere beneath her hurried curse, A corpse lies bounding in a hearse; And friends and relatives disperse, And are not stirred.
Those living dead up in their rooms Must note how partial are the tombs,

And those who have their blooms in iars No longer stare into the stars, Instead, they watch the dinky carsAnd live aghast.

That take men back into their wombs

While theirs must fast.

23

Eeenjro*Tl.e
QO

LLL"

she stands-nude-stretching dully

J TWo amber combs loll through her hair A vague molested carpet pitches Down the dusty length of stair, She does not see, she does not care It's always there.
The frail mosaic on her window Facing starkly toward the street Is scribbled there by tipsy sparrowsEtched there with their rocking feet. Is fashioned too, by every beat

Of shirt and sheet.

24

25

Still her clothing is less risky

Than her body in its prime, They are chain-stitched and so is she Chain-stitched to her soul for time. Ravelling grandly into vice Dropping crooked into rhyme. Slipping through the stitch of virtue,

Into crime.
Though her lips are vague as fanry In her youthThey bloom vivid and repulsive As the truth. Even vases in the making Are uncouth.

In l1articwlar
\ A fUef loin-cloth, V V Unpriced?
what rag of wrong

What turn of body, what of lust Undiced? So we've worshipped you a little More than Christ.

27

Twiliglnt of tlne lllicit

VOU, with your long blank udders And your calms, I

Your spotted linen and your Slack'ning arms. With satiated fingers dragging

At your palms,
Your knees set far apart like Heavy spheres;

With discs upon your eyes like

28

29

Husks of tears; And great ghastly loops of gold

Snared in your ears.

Husks of tears; And great ghastly loops of gold

Snared in your ears.

Your dying hair hand-beaten 'Round your head. Lips, long lengthened by wise words
Unsaid.

And in your living all grimaces Of the dead.

One sees you sitting in the sun
Asleep;

With the sweeter gifts you had And didn't keep, One grieves that the altars of Your vice lie deep.
You, the

twilight powder of A fire-wet dawn; You, the massive mother of Illicit spawn; While the others shrink in virtue
You have borne.

We'll see you staring in the sun A few more years, With discs upon your eyes like

37

To o Cabaret Q)ancer
TUOUSAND lights had smitten her I \ Into this thing; Life had taken her and given her One place to sing.

l\

Ai"1,

with laughter wide and calm; And splendid grace; And looked between the lights and wine For one fine face.
She came

And found life only passion wide 'Twixt mouth and wine.

32 She ceased

33

to search, and growing wise

Became less fine. Yet some wondrous thing within the mess Was held in check:Was missing as she groped and clung

Barriers and heart both broken-dust Beneath her feet. You've passed her forty times and sneered

Out in the street. A thousand jibes had driven her To this at last; Till the ruined crimson of her lips Grew vague and vast.

About his neck.

One master chord we couldn't sound For lost the keys,
Yet she hinted of

it as she sang

Between our knees.

We watched her come

with subtle fire And learned feet, Stumbling among the lustful drunk
Yet somehow sweet

Until her songless soul admits Time comes to kill: You pay her price and wonder why You need her still.

We saw the crimson leave her cheeks Flame in her eyes; For when a woman lives in awful haste

A woman dies.
The jests that

lit our hours by night

And made them gay, Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul And fouled its play.

55

Euicide
Corpse A

-T-Ufy

brought her in, a shattered small

Cocoon,

With a little bruisdd body like A startled moon; And all the subtle symphonies of her A twilight rune.

36

Corpse B

D]UNA BARNES
Long seen as a legendary figure by her admirers, Djuna Barnes has increasingly come to be recognized over the past few decades as a major American author. She is best known for her fictional masterwork, Nightwood, ananatomy;but she also wrote otherworks of fiction , A Book (reprinted as .4 l{ight Among the Horses and later, with new stories and substantial revisions, as Spillwal,) and Ryder. She also published an almanac, Ladies Almanack, and a drama, The Antiphon. Sun r Moon Press has published a selection of her early stories as Smoke and Othu Early Storieq selected her theatrical interviews inlnterviews, and brought together several of her writings on New York City in l,{ewYork. Other books planned are Poe's Mother: Selected Drawings; At the Roots of the Stars: The Short Plays; Collected Stories; Biography of lulie von Bartmann; Ann Portuguise; and a new edition of The Anttphon. With Eugene O'Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay, Barnes was an early member of the Provincetown Players. Later, in the 1920s, she lived in Paris, where her wit and brilliant writing won her close friendships with T.S. Eliot, James loyce, Peggy Guggenheim, and other well-known American expatriates. When she returned to the United States, she wrote for The Theater Guild Magazine. She died in New York in 1982.

UEY gave her hurried shoves this way And that. Her body shock-abbreviated As a city cat. She lay out listlessly like some small mug Of beer gone flat.

-fI